Immense Benefits to Implement an Interactive Website (Web 2.0)
One of the most common types of interactive or dynamic web pages is the database driven type. This means that you have a web page that grabs information from a database (the web page is connected to the database by programming,) and inserts that information into the web page each times it is loaded. If the information stored in the database changes, the web page connected to the database will also change accordingly (and automatically,) without human intervention. Because of such procedure, the number of files for constructing the entire website can be reduced. This is absolutely conducive to space and bandwidth saving.
In addition, an interactive online system acts like a human being and able to work for you round-the-clock since it is an automated system. It can be pre-programmed to serve your existing customers and potential customers, to manage myriad of things without your direct operation. It is overwhelmingly appealing to web surfers as it has dramatically expanded with the growth of the World Wide Web, always accessible and absolutely accommodates the special needs of majority and minority groups. Such a tremendous versatility is one of the most outstanding elements of an interactive online system.
Types of Website
No technological invention in the history of man has brought enormous instant and up-to-date information to people of the world like the Internet. Generally, websites could be categorized into two generic types, namely Static and Interactive (or sometimes it is referred to as Dynamic). The former is defined as a repository that contains information enormously. Its functionality can be understood by the term “Static”. A static website displays information to your visitors but apparently it does not interact with visitors. The latter is interactive in the sense that it interacts with your visitors synchronously rather than merely displaying information to visitors. This is so-called a Web 2.0. The term “Web 2.0″ (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.
Allow me to emphasize the prevalence of Web 2.0 by enumerating several systems which are extensively being implemented nowadays:
- Social Networking System (SNS)
- Web-Content Management System (Web-CMS)
- Community Forum
- Shopping Cart System
- Customer Database Management
Web-CMS
A web-content-management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A Web CMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.
Usually the software provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.
